Revision 1

The Arkanid is the smallest thing the Grell put on the field: a Tier 0 swarm creature with five health that nobody orders directly. Keepers shed them as they take damage, Reavers hatch four of them on death, and the Deep Nest top bar ultimate pours them out in waves. It is a temporary unit with a timed life, so an Arkanid is a body for right now rather than an investment.

Figures below describe the September 2026 Early Access build, the one carrying the identifier ZS.c36778, and they move with the weekly patch cadence. Roughly half the versus roster had a stat touched in the fortnight before that build was captured, so treat every number here as dated rather than permanent.

Stat Block

Weapons

Conversion Costs

Infuse is the Grell conversion mechanic, paid out of the same top bar power pool as the Legion Reanimate and the Xol Replicate. It permanently raises a friendly unit's health, damage and regeneration for the rest of that unit's life. Since the balance pass of August 11, 2026 the bonus is +45%, down from +50%, and the cost multiplier rose from 0.045 to 0.05 so that it matches the Protectorate shield and the Legion Reanimate.

The Arkanid is not eligible for any of the three conversions. Its tags carry no infusion, reanimate or replicate entry, so a Grell player cannot Infuse one, and an allied Legion or Xol player can neither Reanimate nor Replicate it. That is consistent with a free timed-life body: there is nothing to invest in.

Role

An Arkanid is worth nothing on its own and quite a lot in quantity. It costs no supply and no resources, which means a Grell army that is already fighting keeps gaining bodies for free while the enemy spends real damage killing them. Four damage on a one second cooldown is trivial against anything armoured, but it is four damage the opponent did not want to absorb, and the Arkanid's move speed of 725 is faster than every other Grell ground unit in the roster, so they arrive first and surround.

The practical use is body blocking. Arkanids soak a volley aimed at a Harbinger or a Thresher, they hold a melee unit in place while ranged creatures work, and they scout cheaply because losing one costs nothing. They do not hold ground on their own, and the timed life means they cannot be stockpiled between fights.

Faction Context

Arkanids are downstream of three other pieces of the Grell kit rather than of a production building. The Keeper spawns a 50 health Arkanid for every 60 health it loses, which is why Keepers convert incoming damage into an expanding screen. The Reaver hatches four on death. The Deep Nest, a top bar ultimate, produces them continuously while it burns its own life, and since August 14, 2026 it costs 18 power rather than 15.

Because Arkanids appear from damage taken, they scale with how hard a fight is going rather than with how much a player can afford, which fits the wider Grell pattern of trading biomass and bodies for tempo. The wider economy behind that trade is described in Resources and Economy.

Tier and Armour Interactions

The Arkanid carries Light armour with an armour value of 0, so it takes full damage from everything and gains nothing from the flat reduction rule described in Units. Anything with a bonus against Light armour, such as the Protectorate Titan rotary cannon and its +25% against Light, is doing well into Arkanids already, though at five health per body the bonus rarely changes how many shots are needed.

The Arkanid itself has no armour type bonus at all. Its Piercer does flat damage against ground targets and cannot hit air, so a flyer over an Arkanid swarm is completely safe from it.

Counters

Strong Against

Weak To

Balance History

• The Arkanid's own stats were unchanged across the fortnight of patching before this build.

• August 14, 2026: the Deep Nest, one of the three things that spawns Arkanids, had its power cost raised from 15 to 18.

Notes

• The roster record for this unit is PARTIAL. The single field the source does not publish is cost, and its 0 hexite and 0 flux entry is a placeholder rather than a measured price. Every other field in the stat block above is published.

• A separate and larger creature, the Elder Arkanid, guards the neutral experience towers on competitive maps with 75 health and a slow four damage melee attack. It is a neutral map creep and not this unit.

• Per unit numbers are drawn from a community maintained entity catalogue that the studio links from each of its own faction pages. It is the only place the full stat block is published, and it is not a studio document, so the figures are best read as careful community documentation of a build rather than as an official specification. Dated balance notes, by contrast, come straight from the studio patch posts.